Reading Mentz’s essay on The Blue Humanities, while more extensive than the Gillis article from the week before, really helped but into perspective how vast the train of thought towards the topic can be. The gears only turned in my head after reading this specific chunk, “The reason to study the water today, as I would phrase the point now, is that we are going to be seeing more of it, closer up, in the future. Rising sea levels and high-intensity rainstorms are making our environment wetter.” Water is an ever-changing substance, and even thanks to the long lasting impacts of global warming, water is what fuels life, yet is something that can also destroy it. Water is everywhere, and just as Mentz put it, is close to us in many ways, shapes, and forms. Whether or not we choose to acknowledge what water can do for us is up to the individual, but blue humanities, as it turns out, is starting to shape the way I think about tackling Moby Dick. Sure, I can simply think about water as a simple substance that I drink or as a recreational thing to swim in or exist by, but why is the human relationship towards it so important? What drives human nature to want to “bond” with a liquid of life? Honestly, it’s human nature to want to discover the unknown. People fear what they do not understand, and even though we’ve discovered many things about the land, the sea, and the sky, I do believe the sea is still the scariest there is. It is lots of uncharted territory, but needing to strive towards the knowledge of how to approach it safely, I’m certain humans aren’t ever going to stop. It’s ego, it’s hubris, it’s passion, all in all, tackling the vast blue of the ocean through the lens of humanities rather than science seems a little more humbling. Our environments change because of water, and while science gives us the numbers, arts and words allow for a sort of empathy that’s required to even spare the blink of an eye.